Olivia Laing describes loneliness as “difficult to confess; difficult too to categorize. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair.” Laing’s words left me gasping, like a sucker punch to the gut.

My whole body is goosebumps as I hear the songs I listened to secretly on my Walkman, late at night as my parents would fight outside my room. These songs made me feel like I wasn’t the only person who thought things weren’t right in this world.

This summer will be the 5th that I host a summer time Happy Hour on my deck. As one of the kids who regularly attends put it, “You know, Happy Hour! Where kids play and the grown-ups have a glass of wine”.

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